A pc my 2 year old can use

My kid already can use a pc - minimally. She knows how to start a pc. With the right settings she manages to get it to hibernate. She figured out all by herself that hitting the space bar will pause and resume video on youtube and windows media player.

The key to her ability IMO is following simple rules: She presses the biggest buttons, and recognizes simple patterns. I was wondering if it were possible to create a controlled environment where everything is consistent with what she knows, and therefore she's able to use it better. Some of my ideas:

Direct manipulation: these are based on my observation that she sometimes doesnt make the connection between hitting a key/clicking a mouse and the action it triggers on screen. No fault of hers, imo, its akin to Pickard talking into a mouse.

• Use concepts from Johnny Lee's wiimote project to create a direct manipulation display for her
• Combine this with creating a projection tv using projector panel + OHP to make a viewing + playing + learning environment for her

Sandboxed input: These are based on the earlier mentioned observation - she tends to hit the larger keys, or the ones at the edges. So the idea is to put a fixture around the keyboard that allows access to only those keys. Or put on a template such that all the usable keys are highlighted in red, and the others aren't. And the usable keys would have simple one-to-one mappings to actions -eg, start, shutdown, run video, pause/resume, play (gcompris) game, nav keys. Similarly, the mouse too would be in controlled mode - no right click, click=double click, etc.

The good part about sandboxing is that it allows her to learn, and as her understanding expands, I should be able to scale up towards full keyboard and mouse functionality and this enables her to be productive with existing hardware sooner.Need to research laptop templates for this.

Easy Interface: The OLPC's Sugar UI comes to mind. But methinks an even simpler UI is in order to get her to understand how to use things - with a lot of association thrown in. Eg, really large buttons on the screen, that are the same shape, color and location as the keyboard. Icons that are the same on the keyboard as well.

Scheduled Programs: This is an idea I got from noticing that my kid seems to gravitate towards one of the screens we have at home (no tv, but 4 laptops and 1 dvd player) automatically, and turns it on - invariably to her favorite dvd or cartoon. What if the laptop came up, and the only option allowed at that time was to play an educational game? Or maybe if she's already done one ed game, it shows a cartoon as a reward?